When Alaska Airlines shared the other day that they’re celebrating their 90th birthday by giving each employee 90,000 Mileage Plan miles I passed on this news and joked that they were helping their employees learn how difficult it has become to use their miles. There’s a certain truth to this, and it’s actually to the airline’s benefit!
If your bag fits in the sizer at the gate, you can take it on board, because its dimensions are within the rules your airline has set for carry ons. At least that is how it is supposed to work.
Passengers bring things that don’t fit all the time, and gate agents don’t enforce the rules until they do. But if challenged, the sizer is supposed to be a neutral arbiter. One passenger decided to take this to the extreme.
Three months ago a South African Airways Airbus A330 from Accra, Ghana to Johannesburg reported both engines surging while over Botswana. The aircraft, with 209 people on board, continued the final 50 minutes to Johannesburg even as surges continued on final approach.
Reportedly the airline had just changed fuel suppliers in Accra. And after water had been drained from the fuel system, the aircraft was signed off for a ferry flight back to South Africa – with no passengers – but a full complement of passengers was loaded anyway.
there’s good value here. It presaged the Hyatt-SLH partnership, and offers the opportunity to credit cheap Las Vegas midweek stays for elite status. I also hope this promotion drives a lot of business to MGM since I’ve heard rumblings out of MGM that they’ve been somewhat ambivalent about the partnership.
Of course Hyatt will be gaining a bigger foothold in Vegas in its own right, bringing multiple brands to prime real estate as part of the renovation and rebranding of the old 2500-room Rio.
Delta just cares about its customers so darned much and wanted to fly them when they were interested in travel again so the airline ‘stretched’ and pushed themselves too darned hard. Now they need to give themselves a break, not hold themselves to the same standard of flying so many trips, in order to sort things out.
Here Bastian is just like the job candidate who answers the question, “what’s your greatest weakness?” with “I work too hard, and don’t focus enough on outside interests.”
Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles is most known among frequent flyer aficionados for its inexpensive redemptions on United flights. For instance first class to the Caribbean or Hawaii is just 12,500 miles one-way on United when redeeming Turkish miles. However Turkish is so much more than this. They charge comparably few miles and offer more award space to those using their miles than is offered to partner programs.
A roundup of the most important stories of the day. I keep you up to date on the most interesting writings I find on other sites – the latest news and tips.
A woman in a red corset top says she was ‘dress coded’ by Southwest Airlines. And when another woman on the plane stuck up for her, the cops were called.
Southwest’s Lady In Red took to TikTok to ask about dress codes, “are we in high school?”
American Airlines makes companion upgrades free starting Thursday. That’s officially the end of 500 mile electronic upgrades (‘stickers’).
If you have any 500 mile upgrades left in your account they’ll each be converted to 250 status-qualifying Loyalty Points. However if you have any purchased 500 mile upgrades in your account you should contact American and ask to have them converted to 5000 redeemable miles instead.
Introducing the Thompson Vantage XL seat in 2016 was fantastic in 2016 when doors in business class was still a novelty. In 2022 it’s… okay, but something of an also-ran. The seat is tight. Not quite as tight as United’s Polaris, but certainly not spacious either. In terms of passenger space it compares unfavorably to American Airlines.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
